In 1956, Rhode Island adopted two statutes, R.I. Gen. Laws __ 3-8-7 and 3-8-8.1, that forbid both sellers and the media from advertising the price of any alcoholic beverage. The stated purpose of this legislation is to promote temperance by increasing the price of alcoholic beverages. These statutes were upheld by Rhode Island state courts. S & S Liquormart, Inc. v. Pastore, 497 A.2d 729 (R.I. 1985);Rhode Island Liquor Stores Ass'n. v. The Evening Call Pub. Co., 497 A.2d 331 (R.I. 1985). In early 1992, 44 Liquormart, a Rhode Island retail store that sells alcoholic beverages, and Peoples Super Liquor Stores, a Massachusetts retailer that would advertise in Rhode Island if it could, challenged the Rhode Island laws in federal court. The trial court, after a trial on the merits, held that the advertising ban was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. On appeal, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.
In Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557 (1980), the Court held that, under the First Amendment, truthful, non-misleading commercial speech can be restricted only if (1) the government has a substantial interest in regulating the speech, (2) the regulation directly advances that substantial interest, and (3) the regulation is not more extensive than necessary to advance that interest. In Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Council of Puerto Rico, 478 U.S. 328 (1986), the Court held that a legislature's power to ban a particular product or activity included the power to ban all advertising of that product or activity.

On April 24, 1980, petitioner John Anderson announced that he was an independent candidate for the office of President of the United States. Thereafter, his supporters  by gathering the signatures of registered voters, filing required documents, and submitting filing fees  were able to meet the substantive requirements for having his name placed on the ballot for the general election in November 1980 in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. On April 24, however, it was already too late for Anderson to qualify for a position on the ballot in Ohio and certain other States because the statutory deadlines for filing a statement of candidacy had already passed. The question presented by this case is whether Ohio's early filing deadline placed an unconstitutional burden on the voting and associational rights of Anderson's supporters.

In May 1993, Gloria Bartnicki, chief negotiator for the Wyoming Valley West School District Teachers' Union, had a cellular phone conversation with Anthony Kane, a teacher at Wyoming Valley West High School about the contentious negotiations over the teachers' new contract. An unknown person intercepted the contents of the cellular phone conversation and gave them to defendant Jack Yocum, president of the Wyoming Valley West Taxpayers' Association an organization formed for the sole purpose of opposing the teachers' new contract. Yocum then gave the tape to a Fred Williams, a local radio show host, who goes by the name of Frederick Vopper. Vopper played portions of the cell phone conversation over the air.
Bartnicki and Kane sued Vopper, two radio stations and Yocum in federal district court in 1994 under the Federal Wiretapping Act and a similar state law. In 1995, the federal district court denied all parties' motions for summary judgment, finding there were genuine issues of material fact. The district then later certified two questions of law to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The certified questions asked whether imposing liability on the defendants, none of whom illegally intercepted the contents of the phone call, violates the First Amendment.
In 1999, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the federal law imposing liability on individuals who merely disclose or use material that was illegally intercepted violates the First Amendment. The plaintiffs and the United States, which had intervened to defend the constitutionality of its law, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A court considering a challenge to an election law must balance the magnitude of the injury to the challenger's First Amendment rights against the offered justifications for the law, taking into account the extent to which the justifications make it necessary to burden the challenger's rights. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983). When the challenger's rights are subjected to severe restrictions, the regulation must be narrowly drawn to advance a compelling state interest. Illinois Elections Bd. v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979). When the restrictions are only reasonable and nondiscriminatory, however, the state's important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify the restrictions. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983).
"State action to punish the publication of truthful information seldom can satisfy constitutional concerns."Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U.S. 97 (1979). Privacy of communication is an important interest.Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises,471 U.S. 539 (1985). The right of privacy does not generally prohibit the publication of truthful information of material that is of public interest. Samuel Warren & Louis Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193, (1890).

This case raises an important question of federal appellate jurisdiction that was not considered by the Court of Appeals: Whether one member of a School Board has standing to appeal from a declaratory judgment against the Board. We conclude that although the School Board itself had a sufficient stake in the outcome of the litigation to appeal, an individual Board member cannot invoke the Board's interest in the case to confer standing upon himself.

An unusual metaphor in a critical review of an unusual loudspeaker system gave rise to product disparagement litigation that presents us with a procedural question of first impression: Does Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure prescribe the standard to be applied by the Court of Appeals in its review of a District Court's determination that a false statement was made with the kind of "actual malice" described in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279-280 (1964)?In the May 1970 issue of its magazine, Consumer Reports, respondent published a seven-page article evaluating the quality of numerous brands of medium-priced loudspeakers. In a boxed-off section occupying most of two pages, respondent commented on "some loudspeakers of special interest," *488 one of which was the Bose 901  an admittedly "unique and unconventional" system that had recently been placed on the market by petitioner.[1] After describing the system and some of its virtues, and after noting that a listener "could pinpoint the location of various instruments much more easily with a standard speaker than with the Bose system," respondent's article made the following statements:

"Worse, individual instruments heard through the Bose system seemed to grow to gigantic proportions and tended to wander about the room. For instance, a violin appeared to be 10 feet wide and a piano stretched from wall to wall. With orchestral music, such effects seemed inconsequential. But we think they might become annoying when listening to soloists." Plaintiff's Exhibit 2, p. 274.

After stating opinions concerning the overall sound quality, the article concluded: "We think the Bose system is so unusual that a prospective buyer must listen to it and judge it for himself. We would suggest delaying so big an investment until you were sure the system would please you after the novelty value had worn off." Id., at 275.
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The question presented is whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution protect an assistant public defender who is satisfactorily performing his job from discharge solely because of his political beliefs.

A California statute known as “Assembly Bill 1889” (AB
1889) prohibits several classes of employers that receive
state funds from using the funds “to assist, promote, or
deter union organizing.” See Cal. Govt. Code Ann.

In Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U. S. 209 (1977), "we found no constitutional barrier to an agency shop agreement between a municipality and a teacher's union insofar as the agreement required every employee in the unit to pay a service fee to defray the costs of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment. The union, however, could not, consistently with the Constitution, collect from dissenting employees any sums for the support of ideological causes not germane to its duties as collective-bargaining agent." Ellis v. Railway Clerks, 466 U. S. 435, 447 (1984). The Ellis case was primarily concerned with the need "to define the line between union expenditures that all employees must help defray and those that are not sufficiently related to collective bargaining to justify their being imposed on dissenters." Ibid. In contrast, this case concerns the constitutionality of the procedure adopted by the Chicago Teachers Union, with the approval of the Chicago Board of Education, to draw that necessary line and to respond to nonmembers' objections to the manner in which it was drawn.

Concerned about an increase in street crime, the City of Chicago conducted hearings about gang-related crime in 1992. These hearings resulted in a "gang loitering" ordinance which prohibits people police "reasonably believe" to be gang members from "loitering in any public place with one or more persons." The city arrested over 43,000 people under the law until an appeals court struck it down on First Amendment grounds in 1995, finding that the law "violates the freedom of association, assembly and expression secured by the First Amendment" and a similar provision in the Illinois Constitution. The Illinois Supreme Court also ruled the law unconstitutional, though it struck the law down on due-process, rather than First Amendment, grounds. More than 70 defendants convicted under the ordinance appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A law must provide adequate notice of proscribable conduct and not grant unfettered discretion to the police. A law must establish sufficient standards for the police and public — or it can be ruled unconstitutionally vague. The freedom to loiter for innocent purposes is a liberty interest protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Discovery Network sought to distribute commercial flyers from newspaper racks on city-owned property. Cincinnati had a policy against allowing commercial distribution for reasons of safety and aesthetics.

An ordinance in Ladue, Missouri, prohibited homeowners from displaying all signs on their property except residence identification signs, "for sale" signs, and signs warning of safety hazards. A homeowner displayed a letter-sized sign stating "For Peace in the Gulf" and challenged the constitutionality of the ordinance. The district and appellate courts held that the ordinance violated the First Amendment.
While governments may regulate the physical characteristics of signs, they may not allow some signs and ban others based upon their content. Nor may governments ban all signs and foreclose an important form of communication. Metromedia v. San Diego, 453 U.S. 490 (1981).

Under regulations (7 C.F.R. pts. 916 and 917) issued by the Secretary of Agriculture pursuant to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, 7 U.S.C. _ 601 et seq., all handlers of California peaches, nectarines, and plums are, among other things, annually assessed an amount that is used in part to finance generic advertising of these products. A number of handlers, whose total annual assessment chargeable to this advertising has been in excess of $500,000, challenged the regulations on several grounds, including that the regulation that required them to support the generic advertising campaign violated their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The administrative law judge ruled in favor of the handlers, but the Judicial Officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture reversed that decision. The handlers then appealed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which also rejected the handlers' First Amendment argument. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Secretary of Agriculture could not constitutionally require the handlers to finance the generic advertising campaign.
Since 1980, the Court usually has analyzed First Amendment issues involving commercial speech under the standard that it set forth in Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp., 447 U.S. 557 (1980). Under Central Hudson, regulation of lawful, non-misleading commercial speech must be evaluated under a three-part test: whether the governmental interest asserted in support of the regulation is substantial, whether the regulation directly advances that interest, and whether the regulation is more extensive than necessary to serve that interest. In Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Educ., 431 U.S. 209 (1977), and Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990), however, the Court held that members of organizations can be required to contribute financially to speech with which they disagree, as long as the speech is germane to the governmental interest that justifies the compelled membership.

Petitioner school district requires each elementary school class to recite daily the Pledge of Allegiance. Respondent Newdow’s daughter participated in this exercise. Newdow, an atheist, filed suit alleging that, because the Pledge contains the words “under God,” it constitutes religious indoctrination of his child in violation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. He also alleged that he had standing to sue on his own behalf and on behalf of his daughter as “next friend.” The Magistrate Judge concluded that the Pledge was constitutional, and the District Court agreed and dismissed the complaint. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that Newdow had standing as a parent to challenge a practice that interfered with his right to direct his daughter’s religious education, and that the school district’s policy violates the Establishment Clause. Sandra Banning, the child’s mother, then filed a motion to intervene or dismiss, declaring, inter alia, that she had exclusive legal custody under a state-court order and that, as her daughter’s sole legal custodian, she felt it was not in the child’s interest to be a party to Newdow’s suit. Concluding that Banning’s sole legal custody did not deprive Newdow, as a noncustodial parent, of Article III standing to object to unconstitutional government action affecting his child, the Ninth Circuit held that, under California law, Newdow retains the right to expose his child to his particular religious views even if they contradict her mother’s, as well as the right to seek redress for an alleged injury to his own parental interests.

Respondents are drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation counselors who were discharged after they ingested peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, during a religious ceremony of the Native American Church. Both applied for and were denied unemployment compensation by petitioner Employment Division. The Oregon Supreme Court held that this denial, although *662 proper as a matter of Oregon law, violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution.[1] In reaching that conclusion the state court attached no significance to the fact that the possession of peyote is a felony under Oregon law punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years.[2] Because we are persuaded that the alleged illegality of respondents' conduct is relevant to the constitutional analysis, we granted certiorari, 480 U. S. 916 (1987), and now vacate the judgments and remand for further proceedings.

A New York radio station aired George Carlin’s monologue, “Filthy Words.” Carlin spoke of the words that could not be said on the public airwaves. Although the station warned listeners before its broadcast that the monologue included “sensitive language which might be regarded as offensive to some,” the FCC censured the station for violating FCC regulations which prohibited broadcasting indecent material.

Pursuant to a well-publicized plan, a group of lawyers agreed not to represent indigent criminal defendants in the District of Columbia Superior Court until the District of Columbia government increased the lawyers' compensation. The questions presented are whether the lawyers' concerted conduct violated § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and, if so, whether it was nevertheless protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.[1]

The Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association, a non-profit trade association of various radio and television broadcasters in the New Orleans area, challenged the federal law banning broadcast advertisements of casino gaming. The law, 18 U.S.C. _ 1304 prohibits the broadcasting of "any advertisement of any lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme, offering prizes dependent in whole or in part upon lot or chance." The lower federal courts upheld the law, ruling that it did not violate the First Amendment under the U.S. Supreme Court's commercial speech doctrine.
In order for a regulation of commercial speech to survive constitutional review, the regulation must directly and materially advance the government's substantial interests in the regulation. The government must demonstrate that the harms the speech- restriction advances are real and that the restriction will alleviate them in to a "material degree." The government cannot satisfy its constitutional burden by citing speculative harms.

A public figure may not recover damages for a defamatory falsehood without clear and convincing proof that the false "statement was made with `actual malice'  that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279-280 (1964). See Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 162 (1967) (opinion of Warren, C. J.). In Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485 (1984), we held that judges in such cases have a constitutional duty to "exercise independent judgment and determine whether the record establishes actual malice with convincing clarity." Id., at 514. In this case the Court of Appeals affirmed a libel judgment against a newspaper without attempting to make an independent evaluation of the credibility of conflicting oral testimony concerning the subsidiary facts underlying the jury's finding of actual malice. We granted certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals' analysis was consistent with our holding in Bose. 488 U. S. 907 (1988).

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("CDA"), 47 U.S.C. § 223, prohibits the transmission of indecent and patently offensive materials to minors over the Internet. A number of civil rights and computer groups challenged the constitutionality of these provisions on First Amendment grounds. In essence, these groups argued that the inability of Internet users and providers to verify the age of information recipients effectively prevented them from engaging in indecent speech, which traditionally has received significant First Amendment protection. After a lengthy evidentiary hearing that included many online demonstrations, a special three-judge district court (which was created by the CDA to hear the expected constitutional challenges) agreed with the groups and ruled that the provisions violated the First Amendment.
Indecent speech, unlike obscenity, is entitled to constitutional protection because it often has substantial social value and lacks prurient interest. Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). This speech therefore cannot be regulated unless the restrictions are justified by a compelling governmental interest and are narrowly tailored to advance that interest. Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445 (1994). The Court already has held that the government has a compelling interest in protecting minors from indecent speech. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968). The Court also has held that the government may prohibit dissemination of indecent materials to minors as long it does not at the same time prohibit dissemination to adults. FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).